What happens when you give subsistence communities rights over forests, as well as training, organizational support, equipment, and financing? Do the communities destroy the forest in the name of economic development, or do they manage them sustainably, generating current income while maintaining intergenerational value as a resource for their children? For decades Mexico has been conducting a large-scale experiment in the design of a national social-ecological system (SES) focused on community forests. This talk

shares the scientific and social results of that experiment. And they are fascinating!

Presenter: David Barton Bray is Professor Emeritus in the Earth and Environment Department at Florida International University. He is widely published in academic journals and in journalistic outlets such as the New York Times and the Miami Herald. He is the lead editor of the book The Community Forests of Mexico (University of Texas Press, 205) and the author of Mexico’s Community Forest Enterprises: Success on the Commons and the Seeds of a Good Anthropocene (University of Arizona Press, 2020).